Off the Shelf: Adventures Dark & Deep

I still love this alternate 1E game; it is huge, expanded, full of great stuff, and all still 100% 1E compatible. Adventures Dark & Deep is the ultimate "Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy" version of 1E, and even the monster book alone is the definitive 1E bestiary, expanded, full of fun monsters, and worth the hardcover price.

As a standalone game, few have matched its scope and depth. This is the ultimate "modern" version of 1E, and it does compare nicely to OSE Advanced Fantasy. As your "core game," you cannot go wrong here, and this is easily decades of fun. The game also has expansion books, such as the Cthulhu Mythos, and they work well as either Dark & Deep expansions or 1E expansions.

So why play a "lesser" game like OSRIC 3? For the same reason you might prefer Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy. Some do not want all the expansion content and just want to focus on the core, basic, original game. Expansions can muddy and confuse the game, creating too many race and class options for people to sift through.

You add bard and drow options, and people flock to them. Sometimes I want players to consider only the core, original, solid options, which is what the original adventures are balanced for, and I don't want a party full of special ancestries and hybrid classes. This isn't ruling them out forever, but the choice of game says what the game will be and where the focus will be.

Someone who has played a paladin or ranger will likely choose a new expansion class. Everyone wants to play a bard. Everyone wants to play an expanded ancestry.

Sometimes a more focused game delivers a better experience. The moment you open the floodgates of 1001 ancestry and class options (and subclass options), everybody can be anything, and those classic choices disappear. I am a star centaur dark reaver warlock hexblade antipaladin! Right. No.

This is why we need generic, be-anything, do-anything superhero games. If you want to be that, go play a superhero game and have anything you want. The death of the superhero gaming genre killed fantasy gaming, and the floodgates opened, letting fantasy become a superhero game with pre-canned builds companies can sell you for quarterly profits.

OSRIC 3 is a choice. Dark & Deep is an expansion, and it is also a choice. Both are entirely compatible and deserve to live on the same shelf. For me? Less is more, and I play OSRIC, just like many play OSE Classic Fantasy.

I'll migrate to Dark & Deep if I ever get tired of the original game's options. I will probably have fun here. This is just as "correct" a choice as OSRIC, and in some cases, the better one. But as I rebuild my gaming life, I want to start simple. For me, right now, simple is OSRIC.